The Craziest Day Ever: Brought To You By Microsoft Kinect, Mc Donalds and The LAFD

Yesterday was the first Monday of Summer Vacation. The kids went to camp, and I began to tackle the 800 chores that were neglected for end of school festivities.

In the early evening we were invited to the Microsoft X Box Kinect reveal. The kids and I went with Tiffany and her son downtown to the Galen Center where we would meet up with my husband and family. Tiffany boldly navigated traffic the likes of which I have never seen before, and then we all waited in line. Oh, and then we waited some more.

There was no food, there were no drinks, there were no vendors. There were water fountains inside, but nothing for the wait in line. This was an event where you could RSVP your children. Note to self: do not bring children anywhere free. The cost of free is high.

After we made it in we put on these wacky white ponchos with shoulder pads that channeled Joan Collins circa 1985, and we took our seats. There was a weird screen between the seated audience and the audience on the floor. The audience on the floor was interacting with the Cirque Troupe while the seated audience watched through a mesh screen. Weird. Not good, not bad, weirdly engaging.

The reveal was amazing.

Seriously amazing. I sat there and poked Tiffany about three hundred times saying, “I want that.” and “Oh wait, I want that too.” And she never ever poked me back, nor did she shush me. I’m pretty sure it’s because she was tired. I’m pretty sure everyone knows that Kinect was previously called Project Natal, and it’s an XBox that watches how your body moves with three little cameras. Instead of holding numchuks like on a Wii, you simply stand in front of the machine and move as if you were in the game. There are no controllers. It will be available November 4th, and I’m pretty sure that everyone will want one for the Holiday Season. As the parent of kids who have mostly outgrown the Wii, I see this as the next logical step. Oh, also, I want the yoga program. Like I really really really want it.

Here’s a snippet of a family playing a car racing game:

Now I promised you crazy, and I’m going to give you three crazy things that happened last night. I’ll give them to you in chronological order, though certainly not in order of import or oddity.

At the Kinect reveal event I could not find my brother (who I was really looking forward to spending time with), but I did accidentally sit down right behind my ex-stepbrother, his wife, and their two children. The ex step brother and I have no real contact, it’s always strange when we bump into one another. Every few years there’s an awkward “Jessica? Jessica Wilzig?” and I have to remember that I had a different name once upon a time. Our parents divorced in the late 80’s or perhaps the early 90’s? I was absolutely delighted to see him, and it’s been fun watching his wife’s star rise. I tried to explain to my friends who he is, but one guy just looked at me and said, “How does that even happen?” I don’t really have a good answer for that one. It just does.

When we left the Galen Center my husband was ravenous so we drove through Mc Donalds. In my head I’m screaming, don’t do it. Don’t buy this shit, don’t have a salt lick and dogfood for dinner. But the outside of me smiled, and recognized that I’d asked my family along to an event that delighted only me. The kids got hamburgers at 10PM. I said nothing. Everyone in the car recognized the oddity of my silence.

As we turned our car onto our street I glanced at a neighbor’s house and saw smoke billowing from a window. “Honey, I think the pink house is on fire.” As I said the words I thought, oh I’m overreacting, there’s no possible way that the house is on fire. Indeed I was not overreacting, the house was very much on fire.

My husband pulled the car over, told me to dial 9-1-1 and then he went to the front door of the smoking house, and started banging on the door. We could see lights being turned on, and smoke filled every inch of that home. After a moment a man answered the door, I watched my husband talk to him, and then the strangest thing ever happened.

The man walked back into his smoky house.

At this point in time the LAFD was en route, and I was still on the phone with an incredibly well trained dispatcher giving him details as I had them. The dispatcher didn’t react at all as I told him, “the man is going back into the house.” Nothing, no reaction whatsoever. Good work, LAFD our city needs unflappable. I did have the house confused with another, and I was terribly concerned that there were children inside, so it was only after my husband came back to the car and reassured me that that homeowner was not Indian that I exhaled. You see their immediate neighbor is a young Indian family, and the thought of children being in there was just too much to bear.

After fourteen minutes, 29 firefighters were able to put the flames out. My children huddled with other neighbors and we all looked on with horror as flames licked the sides of the pink house. I looked on with horror as my children ate McDonalds.

The homeowner eventually came to our side of the street to talk with the Battalion Chief. His hair was as wild as his eyes, and there was a trickle of snot coming from his nose. The kids wanted to see what would happen, but I had to take them home and to bed. My neighbor was having the worst moment of his life, and now that we knew he was safe it was time to go.

Every part of the evening conspired to have us drive down our street from the wrong direction and notice a plume of smoke.

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Comments 6

1) Kinect is amazing and I will also get one as soon as is possible. (Yes, I work for Xbox, but this was the first time I saw it in action)

2) I’m so thankful everything went your way, and then didn’t go your way, so that you saw your neighbor’s house on fire. It could have ended much differently and in a terrible fashion if things did not go down as they did. I’m even thankful for the glowing shoulder pads.

Wow, what a crazy night! We JUST got our kids a wii last Christmas so the new fangled thingy won’t be seeing our house until IT is out of style.We went out of town last weekend and the only place to stop was McDonald’s. I cringed and drank a poorly blended Frappe and ate french fries because I refused to eat their “meat”!Glad your neighbor made it out ok!